Narrative and meta-narrative

by admin on May 30, 2011

Julia enjoys asking Simon what he wants for his dinner before she begins preparing it. I’m never entirely sure why, as this seems to Simon to mainly be a time to practice his signs — it’s never clear if he also realizes he’s giving assent to the menu items he’s signing back:

I will also note that, when he’s distracted by the potential fun of his tractor, he can get really sloppy with his signs (“yogurt”, in particular here, being nigh unrecognizable).

But the fun comes in when, inevitably, Simon sees us watching and enjoying videos of him, and wants to watch them himself. He’s quite accomplished at doing this on our iPhones, knowing how to scroll through the videos and press the play button (and, when he’s bored, exit to the home screen and look for something far more exciting — i.e., more forbidden).

What’s funny is that he reacts to our voices in the videos as if we were asking him the questions anew. Or, more charmingly, he appears to be coaching Video Simon on what he should say. This is all captured in this excruciatingly complexly cinematographed video of me, holding Julia’s iPhone, which is playing the above video of Simon, while Simon, now eating the dinner he had previously agreed to, coaches Video Simon on how to respond.